Fringed with half-charred wood and silky ash
The fire had died and lay in silver wreath
While I, curled snugly in my blanket bed
Had dreamed beside the crooning Lethe
The sea’s cold breath, idly heaving on the tide,
At last swept inland in swift attack
And welty brushed my cheek and stirred the yew
That darkly spread its ragged skirts across my back,
Somewhere on the Down a sheepbell tolled
While, close at hand, like pebbles drop’t on glass,
A clam’rous blackbird raised his voice
And straightway plunged upon the dew-sheened grass,
Slinking thicket folk
Swished last-years leaves with padded grace,
Sinuous as the swathing mist,
Hunting and hunted in the primal way
Jewelling with blood dawn’s amethyst
I turned and let my lucid eyes ascend the ponderous hump that held the skies
And, even as I looked, from Bignor’s ancient crown
A flaming pennant streamed - and overhead
A seagull, whitely gliding to the fields,
Dipped and easterwardly careened.
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